Miami Herald Wins April Sidney Award For Project On Abused FL Kids

Journalists Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch of the Miami Herald won the April Sidney Award for “Innocents Lost“, an investigative multi-media package that spotlighted more than 400 Florida children who died due to abuse or neglect even after the state’s child protection authorities confirmed mistreatment at home yet failed to act.

Started in 2009, the Sidney Award is given monthly to honor outstanding socially-conscious, investigative journalism that encourages social and economic justice.

“Innocents Lost” documented how nearly 10 years ago, Florida’s Department of Children and Families made a deliberate shift in child welfare policy and deciding to reduce the number of children taken into care by nearly half in an effort to preserve families.

The Herald story pointed out how the department’s funding had been slashed, leaving many children with violent, neglectful, mentally ill or often drug-addicted parents.

Miller and Burch graphically uncovered how some children had been murdered, starved, beaten and...